Vajpayee leads business team to China

India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, became the first Indian leader in a decade to visit
China. His six-day trip in June to Beijing, Luoyang and Shanghai was designed to
enhance political, trade and investment links between the two countries. He was accompa-
nied by a large business delegation.
During a meeting between Vajpayee and Chinese leaders. both sides decided to appoint envoys to resolve their long-standing border disputes. They also agreed to open up border trade at two points along their Himalayan
border, one in Tibet and the other in Sikkim, a formerly semi-independent kingdom that
India annexed in 1975. Until now, China officially regarded it as a sover-eign country and
not a province of India. For its part, India made a written pledge that it would oppose the
anti-Chinese activities of Tibetan separatists in India. The Dalai Lama has lived in India
since 1958.
China's president Hu Jintao was upbeat, saying that both countries
were "determined to further advance [their] good-neighbourly, friendly and mutually
beneficial co-opera-tion and relations".